


Spirals

by Solovei



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 1500 words about Asahi and his feelings, Anxiety, Background Relationships, Inter-High Spoilers, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Noya is Helping, Panic Attacks, but it's still technically M/M I think, hurt/comfort sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 06:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4090771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solovei/pseuds/Solovei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they had called him glass-hearted, they did not know him before his heart hardened into glass to begin with, when it was made of something far more soft and intangible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spirals

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo this is my first foray into volleyball hell. Please be nice.  
> Not much to say about this one; it's pretty rambly in parts, I think?  
> Huge thanks to Owlie and Haiz for beta-reading.

It was the summer before he was to start high school and Asahi sat slumped in a chair, staring pointedly out the window and not at his therapist.

“What about sports?”

“What about them?”

“Sometimes, physical activity can help you channel your anxiety into something positive.”

He summoned up recent memories of gym class. Tall and uncoordinated, he preferred to suffer through it as quickly as he could.

“I don’t know… I’m not… really good at that sort of thing.”

“Well, I’d like you to try. You’re about to start high school soon, and that means a brand new set of people who will be meeting you for the first time. A fresh start. Trying new things, even if you end up failing, is a good habit for you to get into, Azumane-kun.”

He didn’t say anything.

\-----

It began sometime in junior high. He’d sit down to do work and realize hours later that he hadn’t gotten anything done. Asahi was well aware of the pressure on him - on everyone, really. You had to study hard and get into a good high school, and then a good university, and then...  Every assignment seemed to decide his future, his whole life. _This is it_ , he thought, staring intensely at a page of algebra problems. _If I don’t do well on this, I will fail the class. And then there go my chances of getting into any high school worth mentioning, and then my parents will surely disown me. And my friends will never want to speak to me again. I will probably end up a homeless vagrant begging for food under the bridge_. But in spite of that, he couldn’t make himself start, or pick up a good pace. As much as he tried to make himself focus, his thoughts raced at a million miles an hour, brain filled with static and noise. Eventually, he would glance at the clock and realize how much time he had spent worrying instead of doing the thing that he was supposed to do. Asahi would start panicking about the fact that he was panicking, driving the spiral deeper.

Sure, the breathing exercises he’d been given helped somewhat - they took him down off the edge, just a little, to where he could do something. But in the end, volleyball had been something he didn’t know he needed. Rather than simply dulling the most negative effects, it removed many of them entirely. There was no time for overthinking, for one. It was all very quick, spur of the moment decisions, and he could watch them play out before there was time to worry about what he had done. The fatigue he felt after practice left him in a blissful state of clearheadedness that he came to love more than the game itself, where he could come home and fall into a deep sleep, secure in the thought that he had done well today. More importantly, it gave him something he could be good at other than school.    

At least that’s how it was until Date Tech.

Date Tech sent him back to his old self, the person he was before he came to Karasuno. He spent three days in bed, unable to face the world, to face his own failure. This was it; this was what he was afraid of the whole time. Finally, the thing he was staving off his whole time had caught up to him, it had found him, taken its due. High school was going so well, after all. Too well. His grades were better than they had been in junior high, his headaches had gotten less frequent, he had a lot of friends on the team. Asahi lay in his dark, quiet room and spent hours chastising himself over daring to believe it had actually gotten better - that he had done something good, made a decent person out of himself.

In some ways, his return to the team was inevitable. He had told himself it was because he missed volleyball, and he lied. It was because he missed Noya. Karasuno’s libero was a strange factor in his life, something that he didn’t know he needed until it suddenly wasn’t there anymore. They had been good friends since Asahi’s second-year, but the month or so that they’ve spent not talking had brought them even closer. Suddenly there was an openness, a clarity that wasn’t there before. For the first time, he told Noya about his panic attacks, about the spirals. He had been afraid to say anything about it, fearing the reaction he would get. But all he got in response was concern, and encouragement, and a kiss. He did his best not to think about it, not to ruin it as he felt he ruined most other things, by attaching too many thoughts and feelings and anxieties. Noya made it easier; he was so bright and loud and full of energy that Asahi found it hard to think of or notice anything else. There wasn’t any room left for “feelings about Noya”, there was just Noya.

After their defeat at the InterHigh tournament, crestfallen and exhausted, they started loading up the bus to go home. Only, Asahi was nowhere to be found. In spite of his height, he would often hang back in group conversations, making him easy to miss. Sometimes it seemed as if Noya was the only one keeping constant tabs on the ace, quick glances to ascertain his position and mental state. If anyone noticed this, they didn’t say anything.

\---

It was the spring he was to graduate high school and Asahi sat slumped against a tree, his head hung low as he listened to the thunderous beating of his heart. There was a strange sort of tingling in his hands and spine, like his body is having trouble holding itself together, keeping track of all its parts. He gripped the grass tightly, trying to anchor himself to the ground. His breaths came out sharp and shallow, though they are consumed by the sounds of other voices around the arena.

“Asahi?” Nishinoya’s voice called out as he rounded a corner and spotted the tall frame slumped in the grass. The ace met his eyes but didn’t say anything.

“Are you alright?” The shorter boy asked.

“N-no…” Asahi managed to say. “I… um…”

This hadn’t happened to him in a long time. Not since before he started at Karasuno. After Date Tech, it was something different, something much more quiet and creeping, a slow poison that snuck into his life. This came on like a tidal wave, loud and all-encompassing. He knows, in some deep-seated part of him, that he is overreacting, but he can’t help it.

Noya’s wide brown eyes looked concerned for a moment, then shifted to a more serious gaze. He knelt down and placed both hands on his shoulders, with a softness that betrays their relationship to each other. They have gotten closer, since the fight. Even now, he was trying  to straddle the fine line between making sure Asahi doesn’t fall apart from worrying and giving him space to work through his anxiety on his own.

“Hey, listen - you’re alright. I promise you’re alright. Can you take a deep breath?” Noya asked, trying to catch the ace’s gaze again. Asahi did his best, leaning back against the tree and taking in a gulp of air through his nose, feeling it swell up in his stomach, and letting go. “Good, awesome. Keep-- keep doing that.”

“I’m sorry, I… this doesn’t usually…” He said in between deep breaths. He can feel the warmth of Noya’s hands through his shirt, and it brings him back to reality, stops him floating away until he doesn’t feel real anymore. He is real, this is real, and this is fine.

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay. I know you and your glass heart.” Noya’s confident smirk reassured him. “And everyone on the team, you know… they understand.”

“Did… did you tell them?”  
“No, of course not. But... they know how you get sometimes. It’s alright. Everyone’s on your side, you know.”

“... We lost though.”

“Well… yeah… yeah, we lost.” There’s no blame in Noya’s voice, just acceptance.

A few minutes passed, and Asahi finally felt like he could unclench his hands from the lawn. He let out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly. Noya can see the tension leave his body, shoulders rolling back slightly. “I… I think I feel better now.” He managed to get out before the libero pulled him into a hug.

“You did good, Ace.”


End file.
